Adobe’s intention to acquire Figma for $20 billion, announced earlier mid-September, sent shockwaves through the design industry, and not all of them positive. On a business level, it’s a no-brainer that Adobe has snapped up a rival whose design collaboration tools have picked up significantly more traction than Adobe’s home-grown XD platform. On a community level, however, designers and others were upset: they had adopted Figma precisely because it was not Adobe.
Now, a Spanish startup called Penpot — which is taking a new approach to design collaboration through an open source platform that brings designers and developers into the mix simultaneously — says that it’s been seeing a huge amount of adoption since the Figma deal. Today, it’s announcing some funding to capitalize on that, a reminder of how disruption is always around the corner.
The company, based out of Madrid, has picked up $8 million in a round led by Decibel